jldmp1

Overrated, contrived mess. This type of movie only exists for the stars that agreed to appear in it, they all play according to typecast. Jackman for instance with his fierce barking and stony face.

Making the bad guys "at war with God" is just lazy, clichéd writing. Very disappointing.

I suppose this is meant to be seen as a detective movie, but it doesn't have any mystery. Everything is simply given to the viewer. In the detective genre, we expect more. There's more mystery to a detective / comedy like "the hangover".

Much of the plot is directly ripped off from the far superior "The Pledge". There, Jack Nicholson shows how to extend one's range. See that instead.

One of the most difficult problems to solve in movie making is how to end. And I judge movies according to how the maker deals with that task, no matter how affecting the beginning and middle may be. This is where the 'Matrix' movies fell flat, for instance.

Stanley Kubrick was rightly praised for many things he accomplished, and beyond the visuals, he knew how to do 'inceptions' in our minds. Could Nolan also accomplish leaving an idea or image or feeling in our (sub)consciousnesses that we can believe is ours? That lingers and builds imagination, and yes, dreams?

I give this 10/10 for doing that, the same way "2001", or the conclusion of Nolan's Batman trilogy in "Dark Knight Rises" (to name but a few) did.

Ask yourself, were -you- 'kicked' at the end? Did -your- totem keep spinning, or did it stop? I was on the edge of my seat waiting to face that question.

There were a spate of movies associated with the end of the millennium and the search for 'meaning'. This one may be remembered as the best of the bunch. It skips the pretentious, empty action of The Matrix, the obvious cliches of American Beauty, or the purely tongue in cheek tone of (the also excellent in its own way) Office Space. If you could categorize the narrative style, compare with The Sixth Sense or Memento. I think it stays true and relevant to this day re: rejecting vapid consumerism, mocking 'special snowflake' effete self-regard, and standing up for the Regular Joe working man.